Omnimaga

Omnimaga => Site Feedback and Questions => Topic started by: pimathbrainiac on October 30, 2013, 01:37:39 pm

Title: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: pimathbrainiac on October 30, 2013, 01:37:39 pm
So I had this crazy idea that just might work in order to make sure there are active admins/staff/mods on the site: Elections.

Why?

Because 3 out of the 5 admins are barely active, and the other 2 are only semi-active (still more active than me, but that's not the point :P).
Because DJ is tired of people thinking he is an admin, and if we have admins clearly posted (as in, on the front page) and active, meaning people KNOW they are admins, people won't bother him.
Because Geekboy is pretty much the only staff I see posting.
And because Xeda is pretty much the only active CoT (not sure about that though) (Runer should be CoT, IMO).

So yeah, elections. How would they be run?

Members with at least 100 posts can vote.
The current admins (as of 10/30/13) should stay admins.
Votes should be for 2 [EDIT]admin Staff [/EDIT] positions to be reelected every year as well as 3 CoT positions under the same terms.
Only active members may run.

Any thoughts?
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: harold on October 30, 2013, 01:43:09 pm
Let's do a poll about it :P
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: Hayleia on October 30, 2013, 01:44:53 pm
That would indeed be a good idea to have people not confuse who is staff and who is not since they chose it. But that only applies to people who voted, not to newbies who come here, see "Omnimaga" in "DJ_Omnimaga" and keep PMing him.

Because Geekboy is pretty much the only staff I see posting.
You forgot about shmibs. But yeah, that still only makes two admins staff I can think of.

Let's do a poll about it :P
I was about to make that joke, but you ninja'd me lol. People against the vote would have to vote, I find this funny.
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: Sorunome on October 30, 2013, 01:46:15 pm
geekboy isn't a admin :P
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: Streetwalrus on October 30, 2013, 01:47:18 pm
Hmmm, I'd say more posts should be required for voting. Something like 500.
But that sounds like a nice idea to me. Also don't forget that Eeems actually runs the server and maintains it, so that counts too.
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: Hayleia on October 30, 2013, 01:48:13 pm
geekboy isn't a admin :P
True that. My bad, Pimath actually said "staff" and I was the one to say "admin".
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: willrandship on October 30, 2013, 01:51:18 pm
The problem I have with this is that there's nothing ensuring we get capable mods/admins. Just because someone is popular and respected doesn't mean they'll be able to devote the time to this kind of thing, or that they'll be particularly good at it.
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: Sorunome on October 30, 2013, 01:52:05 pm
At last, the monarchy is the way to do it/me hides
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: Streetwalrus on October 30, 2013, 01:52:26 pm
Yeah that is true. ;)
Ninja-edit : That was to Will.
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: willrandship on October 30, 2013, 02:00:36 pm
Monarchies are great when you have a decent king. Problem is, leadership ability and compassion aren't genetic.
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: Sorunome on October 30, 2013, 02:02:16 pm
i know, no worries ;)
So, as we already have a decent king, he could appoint the new kings :P
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: AngelFish on October 30, 2013, 02:02:40 pm
Because Geekboy is pretty much the only staff I see posting.
You forgot about shmibs. But yeah, that still only makes two admins staff I can think of.

In all fairness, I still read topics near-daily. I just rarely post unless something interests me or I'm acting in some capacity as an admin. The others tend to do the same from what I've seen.
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: willrandship on October 30, 2013, 02:02:49 pm
Back on topic: Wouldn't this make it even more confusing? The list of admins would be constantly changing, so all the ex-admins would get the same pestering as DJ.
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: Streetwalrus on October 30, 2013, 02:04:27 pm
Well, look at the French President (François Hollande). This guy is a comic idiot playing with the State's money./me hides
But yeah this shows that democracy doesn't always choose the right leader(s). ;)

And yeah, I have to agree with you Will.
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: pimathbrainiac on October 30, 2013, 03:14:55 pm
Back on topic: Wouldn't this make it even more confusing? The list of admins would be constantly changing, so all the ex-admins would get the same pestering as DJ.

I actually didn't think about that. But I think the admin list wouldn't change that much so long as those admins are still in the favor of the community and are active/productive.

EDIT:

The problem I have with this is that there's nothing ensuring we get capable mods/admins. Just because someone is popular and respected doesn't mean they'll be able to devote the time to this kind of thing, or that they'll be particularly good at it.

Also true, but being more active and more respectable means that they will have better judgement and be able to moderate on pretty much everything, because there will be more people who are actively watching doing stuff.

Also, mods in more time zones make it easier to administrate 24/7
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: Sorunome on October 30, 2013, 03:16:12 pm
To be honest, I'd be more for a monarchy of omnimaga.
Or a demogracy that only goes so far that admins can vote, nobody else :P
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: TheCoder1998 on October 30, 2013, 03:17:33 pm
can i be staff member :3
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: pimathbrainiac on October 30, 2013, 03:20:02 pm
can i be staff member :3

It would depend on if people would vote for you and if you have enough posts to vote/run if this happens.

Else, talk to the admins when you become a very respected and very active community member.
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: TheCoder1998 on October 30, 2013, 03:21:25 pm
okay
i love your avatar btw (and i'm not even a brony)
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: Juju on October 30, 2013, 03:34:21 pm
And because Xeda is pretty much the only active CoT (not sure about that though) (Runer should be CoT, IMO).
I beg to differ.

What about the admins appointing candidates (of course said candidate would agree), then the members would vote.

Actually, I don't really care about the method of appointing members to staff status, it's just the admins who don't appoint people often enough. Maybe we should let the general populace have their word though.

And here, the fact the more you're respected here the more you should be staff might be kinda true, actually.
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 30, 2013, 03:37:27 pm
IMHO, elections, as democratic as they would be, could be risky if new members or those who haven't been very active votes in mass. A bunch of people might vote for calc84maniac to be admin only because he made TI-Boy SE and gbc4nspire, allowing them to play PAKÉMANZlolol!!!11!one. There is also the issue of if, one day, another inter-site feud occurs, then a bunch of highly-biased members from the other site decided to vote so that Nikky or the like becomes admin.

IIRC, to add coders of tomorrow, the 2010-11 system involved bringing it up in the staff section and asking other staff if they think it would be a nice staff addition, and people would raise good and bad points. Admins were pretty much nominated, though.


Also just some clarifications:
-Although SunFish isn't that active, I noticed he still participates a bunch on IRC and when bad incidents occured, he was active moderating or calming things down. Maybe more public forum participating could be in order, though.
-Eeems is pretty active on IRC and especially maintaining the site and OIRC. Forum activity is ok as well (even if mainly concentrated in site maintenance/staff threads)
-Shmibs activity is fine.
-Netham45 is pretty much gone.
-Geekboy's summer inactivity issues might be resolved, now that he moved out of his mom's home. He's currently active maintaining the contest.
-Deep Thought has been kinda missing in the last few months, though, but he seems to have re-appeared a bit recently. Is it lack of time or had he lost interest?

In overall, the current admin activity, other than maybe Deep and Netham, is kinda fine. An admin who lives in an European timezone or who can help while others are sleeping or at work would be nice, though. Else, maybe certain CoT or support staff could be given extra privileges so that they can delete spambots easier. Also it might be nice if admins were not invisible in the online list.


Another idea I have would be that if there is a SMF 1 mod that lets you add prefixes or suffixes to nicknames, so that icons can be appended to certain nicknames like I saw on certain Invisionfree forums.


EDIT: Also IIRC, Xeda didn't want mod powers anymore. This can be a pretty nasty task when the site gets invaded by trolls. And yeah maybe some CoT cleanup and renewal might be in order, even if it's not hiring time. For example, FinaleTI and Apcalc didn't post in almost one year and leafy recently said he's done with calc stuff and isn't planning to post any computer project anytime soon due to not being game-related enough.
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: pimathbrainiac on October 30, 2013, 03:41:48 pm
And because Xeda is pretty much the only active CoT (not sure about that though) (Runer should be CoT, IMO).
I beg to differ.

What about the admins appointing candidates (of course said candidate would agree), then the members would vote.

Actually, I don't really care about the method of appointing members to staff status, it's just the admins who don't appoint people often enough. Maybe we should let the general populace have their word though.

And here, the fact the more you're respected here the more you should be staff might be kinda true, actually.

Mods appointing mod candidates: I agree.

And: sorry, I forgot you were a CoT :P
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: Juju on October 30, 2013, 03:42:47 pm
Another idea I have would be that if there is a SMF 1 mod that lets you add prefixes or suffixes to nicknames, so that icons can be appended to certain nicknames like I saw on certain Invisionfree forums.
Like on DeviantArt? That would be nice. (DeviantArt recently changed their usernames character prefixes to little symbols after the username, but it's still the same.)
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: Darl181 on October 30, 2013, 03:58:18 pm
Another idea I have would be that if there is a SMF 1 mod that lets you add prefixes or suffixes to nicknames, so that icons can be appended to certain nicknames like I saw on certain Invisionfree forums.
Like on DeviantArt? That would be nice. (DeviantArt recently changed their usernames character prefixes to little symbols after the username, but it's still the same.)
I kind of like this idea as well. Though imo, preferably something like the old tildes and stuff instead of the images they changed them into, the new icons are a bit distracting and don't really fit in well.
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 30, 2013, 03:58:42 pm
I never checked Deviantart stuff, but on some IF boards, I remember that staff had small colored circles besides their nicknames. Another thing I saw was how some mods had a black or green square with black background around their nick. I think Cemetech did that actually.

Bolded nicknames would have worked if it wasn't for the fact that on SMF, bold is used for members in your buddy list.
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: Sorunome on October 30, 2013, 03:59:21 pm
I also like the nick-prefix idea, it makes the groups somebody belongs to far clearer :)
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: Streetwalrus on October 30, 2013, 04:04:03 pm
Bolded nicknames would have worked if it wasn't for the fact that on SMF, bold is used for members in your buddy list.
Who actually use this ? O.O (besides you apparently)

But yeah the symbol prefix would be nice. Maybe IRC-style ? (@ for admins, + for mods although not quite what it is in IRC)
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 30, 2013, 04:05:16 pm
I never used it because I didn't know about it until a few years after reviving Omni, plus I have Facebook/Twitter/etc for that anyway. But a bunch of people use it.
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: Sorunome on October 30, 2013, 04:05:37 pm
Bolded nicknames would have worked if it wasn't for the fact that on SMF, bold is used for members in your buddy list.
Who actually use this ? O.O (besides you apparently)
I do :P (yes, you are on my buddy list :P)
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: SpiroH on November 01, 2013, 03:57:29 am
Also, mods in more time zones make it easier to administrate 24/7
A very good (a must) point there!
Title: Re: An Idea for Admins/Staff/Mods - Elections
Post by: aeTIos on November 01, 2013, 07:15:50 am
I actually do use the buddy list :3